Chelmno and the Holocaust

The History of Hitler's First Death Camp

Patrick Montague

Publication Year: 2012

This work is a comprehensive history of the Chelmno camp, located in Poland, which the author argues was a template for other, better known and documented Nazi camps devoted exclusively to the “Final Solution” for Europe’s Jews and others. The manuscript is largely a descriptive narrative, packed with detail, rather than an analytical study. This is appropriate because there has been heretofore very little known about and documented on Chelmno. Montague has been indefatigable in gathering information from Polish, Israeli, English, German, and other archives. This book aims to stand as the standard work on the Chelmno camp.

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of a project that eventually stretched over a 20 year
period. So many people intersected with this work over the years that
it is truly impossible to name them all. A sincere thank you seems less than
adequate. Others who cannot go unnamed and whom I want to acknowledge
and thank here are as follows: ...

Foreword

The small Polish village of Chełmno was the site of the first Nazi
death camp, which unlike the larger and better known death camps
that followed—Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau and
Majdanek—used mobile gas vans rather than stationary gas chambers. ...

Introduction

The literature on the extermination of the Jews during the Second World
War is vast. It is common knowledge that millions of people perished
in the Holocaust, yet research concerning the extermination centers, where
many of the victims actually died, is limited at best. ...

1. Prologue

"Euthanasia” is a word derived from the Greek language meaning
“helping to die.” The modern concept of “physician-assisted suicide”
has nothing in common with what has become known as the Euthanasia
Program conducted by the National Socialist regime. This program was
based on racial theory and eugenics. ...

2. Extermination: The First Period (1941–1943), Photographs follow page 148

In the autumn of 1941, Rottenführer Walter Burmeister, assigned as
Lange’s driver, signed an oath of secrecy to remain silent concerning
his activities with the Sonderkommando.1 While the operation in Konin
was underway, Lange ordered Burmeister to drive east about 40 kilometers
to the small village of Chełmno. ...

3. Extermination: The Second Period (1944–1945)

Between the closure of Chełmno in April 1943 and its re-establishment
a year later, Germany faced a number of defeats on the battlefield.
German forces had already surrendered at Stalingrad, the Red Army’s long
march to Berlin had begun and Allied bombing over the Reich intensified. ...

4. Epilogue

The Sonderkommando fled Chełmno just before the arrival of the Red
Army. The remaining members of the Polizeiwachtkommando were
placed under the command of the local police in Koło. The SS contingent
drove to Konin and spent the night there. Bothmann attempted to contact
Dr. Bradfisch of the Łódź Gestapo, but was unsuccessful. ...

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